Tag Archives: NHS

Well December is going see some changes, for on the 1st I can get rid of my Mo and then a week and a bit later will see the demise of Nora the Nasal Nodule as I have just had my revised appointment for her to be expunged from the end of my nose. I’ll be taking a picture of the Mo to post on the Movember pages before it comes off so there will be a shot of the two facial appendages that I’ll add here. Continue reading →

“I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” has to be one of the most chilling lines in a popular song and, whilst many have sung it, it is the dulcet tones of Johnny Cash that deliver it best.

Death comes to us all for we all have but a short time here, and during that time we will encounter death along the way; as children we lose our pets and, perhaps older relatives and then as adults our parents and those of our partners so watching someone die is a reality we have to face. Continue reading →

Nora the BCC on my nose was due to have been surgically removed on the Thursday following my rather sudden admission to hospital with liver failure, and the operation was postponed on the basis that I might not have been able to have it. Continue reading →

When I was first introduced to the PICC concept I almost passed out, for the thought that they wanted, not just to puncture an vein to allow fluid in, but to insert something that would run along a vein, into a bigger one and end deep in my body between my heart and throat filled my with utter horror. Continue reading →

Yesterday I found myself back at the Great Western Hospital. Not just there, but up on the third floor where my Mother spent so much time in her last 7 months or so and where she died in the end; poignant moments being back on that corridor. Continue reading →

It is a while since I have blogged here. Neglect has been due to so many other things going on in my life and this blog has been one of the things that has regularly fallen off the end of each day’s to do list as demands on my time arrive from all directions, not least the need to interact with the Wonder of Wokingham, but also chasing and winning, or otherwise, opportunities to earn a crust. Continue reading →

As I’m going to be out of circulation for a bit I have lined up a series of posts that are scheduled to come out at random points. I hope that you enjoy them and I will be back soon to pick up on more topical things as soon as I can.

I have been trying to help someone who is, as I have had to, lined up for a series of operations. As something of a veteran now of hospital wards I have found my own way of coping, so another session I can meet with a degree of stoicism, but someone who is in for the first time? It does make me feel that I am playing Norman Stanley Fletcher to their b; the old lag and the innocent newcomer.

So how do I cope? My basic stance is to spend my time reconstructing various pleasurable trips abroad; my first time in the US (Atlanta 1993), riding the ICE from Hamburg to Hannover, the Monaco GP 1973, streaking under the channel in my car on the train, seeing California and so on. I have been lucky enough to have been around a bit and can dredge up these memories.

And there you have it; when I’m lying in a hospital bed trying not to worry about what happens when they take me down or later trying not to think of the discomfort, I can shut my eyes and transport myself to somewhere that a memory will take. Lie back and think of somewhere nice.

A couple of readers have question my attitude to death in the wake of recent posts. It is a simple one; we are going to die and we know that it will come to us at some point, so why not just accept it as being a truth and get on with living?

I first encountered death aged about 13. My grandparents were all long gone and the first body that I saw was not anyone that I knew, but there they were. Within months I tripped over the grim reaper again when I witnessed a road accident and one of the victims died despite the efforts of myself and others to save them. Since then I have seen others die in accidents, lost both parents and other relatives, friends, colleagues and acquaintences to a point where I have lost count. Maybe that toll has hardened me, but I think that it may be more that I have become used to death. It hasn’t diminished in its impact, but I have learned to cope perhaps?

My own end will come some day. I have come close more than once and realised some years back that, whilst I enjoy experienceing things in life, the last experience that I will have is that of dying. On that basis, when it comes, I will do my best to enjoy that too.

My belief is that when you die you are dead. There is no afterlife in my world, no heaven or hell, it’s just over and I will be gone. And so I will make the best of what time I have here, trying not to abuse the world around me and its many life forms and helping where I can.

Our time to go is our time to go. It may seem too early to others (or too late to some), but it is our time.Do I get angry over some deaths? Yes I do, and when I do I try to do what I can to speak out, but not to rant because you can’t undo death so why waste the effort? Instead I would rather use reasoned argument to try and change things so that there is less risk for the future.

As for emotional response to death, if you want to wail and nash your teeth over it then that is your choice. I choose to honour the dead my way.

I had a bad feeling about a late afternoon appointment for a check up and, sure enough, things were running an hour late. This sort of thing drives me to distraction and I ended up having to leave part way through what they had planned for me as I had something else that I needed to be doing.

Whilst I do have some sympathy there are some aspects of my NHS encounters where they just play themselves into trouble. My GP will arrange appointments from 0830 but they wait until exactly 0830 to walk around and unlock the door, so even if you are first through the door it will be a couple of minutes before you are sat down and the Doc is never standing at the consulting suite entrance waiting for you. By their own clocks it is usually 0835 before anyone is called, so they are late from the first appointment.

In the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin Reggie dictates a letter to the British Railways chief suggesting that, as his train is always 11 minutes late, they reissue the timetables adjusted accordingly. Same sort of issue really.

So I’m sat here this evening feeling pretty low. I’ve had time wasted that means, to avoid letting someone down, I’ve had to do an hour’s work this evening when I had plans to do something personal.